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Managing Unmanageable People
Prior to the Industrial Revolution there were no managers. Not as we think of them anyway. Before factories were invented, pretty much everyone worked for themselves or in small, family businesses. They had a butchers shop or they farmed a small-holding. And they traded with other family businesses.
Once factories were invented the world of work changed. Suddenly there was a demand for a large, unskilled workforce. People who would turn up on time, do as they are told, not ask too many questions. They were there to do the jobs that couldn’t be mechanized.
To make these factories work, a new class of worker emerged. First they would have been called overseers and then managers. Their job was not to do things, it was to tell other people to do things and to discipline them if they didn’t. To differentiate themselves these managers acquired status symbols, like white collars and offices.
In the early 1900s, business schools started to emerge. They looked at the world of work and tried to explain it, to improve it and to sell this knowledge to the managers of the world. Holders of special knowledge commanded higher salaries, executive suites and power over the workers.
It was at this time that managers started to think an organisation was like a machine. Leaders in those organisations borrowed the language of the factory…
